Frege's Antı-Psychologısm and Its Relatıon to The Subject Matter Of Logıc

Abstract

Psychologism, which emerged in the late eighteenth century, claims that all products of the human mind arise according to the laws of psychology. For this reason, it accepts that all philosophical or scientific concepts and problems can be explained according to subjective psychological experiences or common elements formed from what is observed in all men. Frege noticed the problems caused by psychologism in the field of logic, and accordingly, he became one of the thinkers who opposed this view. As far as we can determine, according to him, there are two main problems with psychologistic approaches. First, it is not possible to handle and explain the concept of "true", which falls under the field of logic, in an appropriate way, in terms of psychology. Second, since it is based on the mental processes of individuals, it is not possible for psychology to be normative and to determine general laws. Frege thought that by determining the appropriate use of the word "true", the goal mentioned could be achieved. The everyday use of truth gives us four starting points to question. The first of these are objects that are representations of anything, such as a picture or painting; the second, the ideas as the representations of these pictures in our minds; the third is the sentences we have built about these pictures, ideas, or the relations between them, and the fourth is the thoughts that are the meaning of these sentences. Of the four identified, only thoughts are worthy of the proper use of "true." In this case, the logician must investigate the laws of the truth of thoughts. Frege tries to purify logic from ideas, which are individual perceptions, and therefore from the subjective. This effort is also the main motivation for his attempts to express logic in a formal language. Because it is extremely difficult for him to make logic by completely getting rid of the psychological connotations of everyday language. It is clear that Frege's critiques pose problems for Frege in that they are on a Platonic basis. However, it is also clear that the problems that Frege's argument answers are also problems that all psychologistic positions must resolve.